Research

My research interests are

• feminist global politics and political economy
• gender mainstreaming and advocacy on gender equality in natural disaster, post-conflict and development contexts
• queering aid expertism
• analytical focus on intersecting inequalities and subversive feminist politics
• social and spatial vernacular memory, resistance and counterpublics to reconstruction
• tsunami and post-conflict reconstruction in Aceh, Indonesia and post-earthquake reconstruction in Bhuj, Gujarat, India
• aim to contribute towards critical understanding of social and political consequences of reconstruction aid

My PhD research focused on the politics and normativity of gender mainstreaming initiatives in the post-tsunami and post-conflict reconstruction efforts in Aceh, Indonesia. In my postdoctoral research (2012-15), I continued with street ethnography in Banda Aceh focusing on post-disaster/conflict memoryspaces, social and spatial vernacular memory as a site of struggle: provoking norms in relation to gender, class, ethnicity, sexuality, and religion, through normative calls for gendered piety and propiety. In my current research, I continue these themes with multi-sited ethnography that combines life history and documentary film methods.

Ongoing research projects include:

1. Academy of Finland Research Fellowship ‘Gendered Political Violence and Urban Post-Disaster Reconstruction’ (2015-2020) studies the intersection of gender, disaster politics, political violence, and national ideologies in post-disaster urban Gujarat, India.
2. Researcher in ‘Aftermath of Aid: Assessing the Effectiveness and Sustainability of Post-Disaster Reconstruction in Aceh, Indonesia’ (2014-16),  in a research cluster ‘women, post-disaster economics and livelihoods’ with Prof. Eka Srimulayani (UIN Ar-Raniry), Principal Investigator Dr. Patrick Daly, Earth Observatory of Singapore.
3. Scraps of Hope Aceh – urban ethnography and life history film documentarism in Banda Aceh: post-production of 10 short films and drafting chapters for a forthcoming hybrid monograph that combines ethnographic writing and embedded videos